Of Coffee and Tabooed Conversations
by Son Mon Propre
Summary: AU. Rated for language. "I don't hate you, you know," she says at last.


I do not own the characters of Naruto... sadly...

Anywho! Enjoy :))

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She stares at him as he sits across from her.

She examines him with warmth and question lingering in her gaze, while he, seemingly, regards her back with a rather blank look. She isn't fooled though. She can see the subtle hesitation that flickers in his stare.

She lets the silence continue for a few more seconds, telling herself that it is not sadistic that she enjoys watching him squirm, even if she is the only one that can truly tell, and even if it's only a little. He deserves it she concluded a long time ago. She shifts her gaze to the window where she can see the soft snow begin to fall, a gentle smile gracing her lips.

"I don't hate you, you know," she says at last, looking down at her coffee on the table, sparing him glance from beneath her long pink lashes. She laughs at the blatant shock adorning his visage.

"Really now Sasuke, I think we've held off this conversation long enough." She states lightly, her eyes teasing him ever so slightly. "Besides, you have to understand that while you can pretend to be okay with our regression, I have had my fill and –"

"Pretend?" He cuts her off, hesitation completely gone.

_She walked into the room, hugging everyone but him. For him, all he got was a smile and a nod in acknowledgement of his presence. He nodded back, but as she turned around his look of indifference turned to that of annoyance, one only Naruto was able to catch. _

"Yes, Sasuke, 'pretend.' You know: make believe, imagine, etc. Anyway, I would like to have this tabooed conversation because I think it is pretty obvious this is the only thing stopping us from moving forward, or better yet, on with our lives."

He regards her blankly, assessing her. "I already apologized. I don't repeat myself. You know that."

"I'm not asking for another apology Sasuke, and besides, you didn't really give me one anyway," she pouted, "you nodded your head at me when I finally acknowledged your presence for the first time in months and all I did was smile back."

"Hn."

"I mean, granted, that was a big thing, considering I refused to go anywhere you were going to be prior to then, and when I did run into you, I ignored you and ran away like you were the plague" she giggled. "You didn't ask questions though when I started coming back around and I pretended like everything was okay, because for me, it was. I appreciated things going back to how they were before. I had found peace within myself that you had simply used me and there was nothing I could do about it."

_It was a passionate, rushed, and wet kiss. The latter probably because of Sasuke's wet clothing – it was raining heavily outside and he seemed to have run here from his place a couple blocks down. _

'_I thought – I thought –' he began, only to be cut off by her shushing him. _

'_It's alright,' she whispered, pulling her face away from his, 'see? Only a few scratches here and there.' She smiled, trying to reassure him she was fine. _

_The car crash she had been involved in was a minor one, one that was not her fault, but the drunk drive's. Luckily the tail end of her car had been hit and not the front, resulting in only a few scratches and bruises to her body, but apparently, Naruto relayed the message to their friend in a different manner (she had called him to tell him the reason she couldn't make it to the bar and that she was returning home to rest), considering Sasuke rushed into her apartment, grabbing her face and examining her body for any major injuries. When he found none, he proceeded to kiss her senseless. Not that she was complaining._

He scowled at her last sentence. "Don't give me that look Sasuke. You know just as well as I do that there is no way I wouldn't have reached that conclusion so I accepted it."

"If you reached that conclusion, then why'd you 'accept it?'" He questioned harshly, glaring at her as she turned her head back to continue to watch the snow fall.

"I was in love with you." She muttered softly, still gazing out of the window, her eyes looking far off and her mouth had graced a ghost of a smile.

"Although when I point that out, it just makes you seem like that much more of a douche bag huh?" She teased him laughing. "I mean think about it! I had made my feelings pretty clear since we were in kindergarten and in hopes of gaining your friendship I crushed my 'crush' in elementary school, but upon entering high school, the second you start showing feelings for another girl, I felt like my whole world had shattered. I questioned myself and wondered why, when you finally started showing some attraction towards me, I felt like a giddy ten year old. I guess you can assume just how long it took me to realize I actually fell in love with you after the first time we kissed."

'_We shouldn't be doing this, I just got back from a date and I know you just broke up with Karin a couple months ago, _I know_, but this is still bad. She's going to hate me. We haven't even told Naruto what's going on! And I mean, what _is_ going on, Sasuke-kun? I wanna know –' She was cut off as his kisses returned from her neck to her lips, the rest of her sentence lost now._

_She tried not to compare his kiss with the one her date just gave her when he dropped her off, but it was _so_ hard. Ikura's kiss was gentle and smooth, while Sasuke's was surprising (then again he had suddenly barged up to her doorstep seconds after Ikura's car was out of view). It wasn't the first they had kissed, maybe the third or fourth, but it always ended with her sneaking Sasuke in or her sneaking out… not that she minded really._

'_Shut up Sakura.'_

_And she did, but she didn't let the lingering thought of how long this would last leave her mind. _

Silence.

She was halfway done with her cup of coffee when he finally spoke up.

"Hn. I didn't go to you with the intention of using you. I thought you were what I wanted. When I found someone better though, I realized you weren't."

'_Thanks again for driving me home Sasuke-kun!' Sakura said smiling,as she gathered her things so she could leave the car as it approached her home. 'I know Karin gets a bit jealous when you do so I really appreciate it!' As much as it pained her to say it, it was true, Karin was fine with their friendship, Sakura and Naruto made it clear that there was nothing the red head could do to extract them from Sasuke's life, much to Karin's chagrin._

'_Hn.' _

'_I know the high school isn't _that _far from my house, but –'_

'_I broke up with Karin yesterday.'_

_Sasuke smirked at the look on Sakura's face._

The sound of her slap resonated throughout the café. It was so sharp and forceful, the sound produced was clear and made more than one customer and worker cringe. Her eyes were on fire as she glared at him. He clenched his teeth, knowing he should have expected this to come of this conversation and regretted not trying to hold it off. He decides he wouldn't be surprised if she gathered up her things and left him with the request to never speak to her again.

"Don't you dare try and give me that 'bad boy' bullshit Sasuke. I won't have any of that. We are going to talk this out like adults because that is exactly what we are. We aren't in high school anymore Sasuke – we're in college. This has gone on long enough. I wanted to have this conversation to clear up all the questions so we can get out of this rut. You may call me annoying, but I find this situation more irking." She reprimanded him.

"Last year I asked you where we stood because it was nth time you had come to visit me for our little 'arrangement' and you ran out with your tail between your legs. A couple weeks later you appeared with your ex-girlfriend from months before on your arm.

'_Hi guys!' _

_Everyone whipped their head around at the sound of the familiar voice. To say they were all shocked was an understatement. Naruto recovered the quickest and hastily welcomed the two people that had just walked into his birthday party: Karin and Sasuke. _

_Ino stole a glance in the general direction of where Sakura had been standing previously only to find that the pink haired woman was no longer standing there. As she looked back at the couple that had just walked in, she saw Sasuke looking for something, or someone as well. When they made eye contact, Ino glared, shook her head, and went off to find Sakura, missing the way Sasuke followed her movements, memorizing where she was going. He needed to talk to Sakura, and he would find her. _

"I cared too much about our friendship to let years of it go to waste but I was hurt. I thought it was different. That we were different. That you were different. But then, all of a sudden we weren't talking and admittedly that was my soul decision _because I was hurt,_ but you accepted it without a fight. You accepted it! _You_ let years of our friendship slip away!" Sakura's voice had finally risen, but then again so had Sasuke's.

"Well, what did you want me to do? I knew I messed up. I knew I hurt you. I saw it on your face when I brought Karin to Naruto's apartment. What did you want me to do Sakura? I didn't know what I wanted." Sakura scoffed at this muttering something akin to 'emotionally impaired.'

"Shut up. I'm not like you. I didn't like you like you liked me at first –"

"So what?" Sakura whipped her head to look at him once more. "You took advantage of me? You knew I still had some feelings for you Sasuke! It's impossible to say otherwise because I'm pretty sure I made myself clear! You couldn't deny the sexual tension between us and neither could anyone else, so what? Did you just want to get it out of your system the first time around, cause that certainly didn't work! Was I convenient? Was I easy? Was it a _game_ for you?" Sakura sneered at last.

She sighed, looking out of the window once more, ignoring all the stares she knew were directed at their table. "You know," she started to say with a lowered voice, "if you had told me all you wanted was a hook up or at least warned me, I would have been fine with it, but you didn't give me anything to work with." Silence issued.

Her companion had stared at her throughout her whole tirade. "Are you done?"

'_Are you done?' The irritation laced __in his voice made her laugh._

'_Almost Sasuke-kun, be patient! It takes time to look pretty you know! Hey! Do you mind coming in here and helping me with my zipper? It's stuck!' Sakura yelled out to him from the restroom in his bedroom. 'The door is unlocked! But wait until I tell you to come –'_

_Her warning was not heeded as Sasuke opened the door to the bathroom. As she screamed and yelled at him to leave the bathroom until she had the dress over her undergarments, all Sasuke did was smirk. _

'_Calm down. It's not like its anything I haven't already seen.'_

Sakura stared at him with shock and horror written all over her face. She got up to leave while throwing money down on the table for her coffee. "You're a pig. You're a chauvinistic pig and I am grateful to have seen this side of you now otherwise –"

"Sakura, you're annoying. Sit down."

"No!" She yelled. Finally moving to get out of the booth, she refuses to think about the burning sensation in the back of her throat, and makes a move to leave the coffee shop only to be stopped by a hold on her wrist.

Sakura gritted her teeth, looked back at Sasuke and tried to rip her hand from his grasp. Sasuke sighed exasperatedly, yanking her down, gritting out a "sit _down_ Sakura" before glaring at everyone in the café.

Sakura reluctantly sat down while yanking her wrist out of his grasp and asked, "Are you going to stop bullshitting me?"

"Hn."

"That's hardly an answer Sasuke," Sakura rolled her eyes.

"I don't know what the fuck has been festering in your mind but nothing that occurred between us was pretend," Sasuke deadpanned.

Shock jolted through Sakura's body as she stared at back at Sasuke, not believing what she just heard.

"W-what? …why?"

"Hn. I told you I didn't know what I wanted."

The fire ignited once more in Sakura's eyes, "So what? You played with me?"

"I didn't say that." Sasuke rolled his eyes, reaching across the table to pick up her forgotten cup and downed its remaining contents. "I didn't know what I wanted then and that resulted in our current situation." Sasuke stated, eyes narrowing.

Sakura rolled her eyes, "You didn't really give me much of a choice for a conclusion, Sasuke. We just went over this."

"Yeah well you didn't give me much time to explain."

Silence issued once more, but this time, it wasn't uncomfortable like the previous ones. Anyone who would have walked by the café throughout the day could have looked into the window and seen two people, sitting in the booth; the woman counterpart talking and laughing animatedly, the male, staring at her, smirking occasionally. To the costumers and workers inside the café throughout the day, this obscure couple was their entertainment, yet not one person walked out of there without feeling the assurance that whatever they were arguing about previously would be resolved.

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Just to clear the timeline up, the present time takes place in Sakura's and Sasuke's second year of college! Also, no, these memories do NOT go in order! If you have any further questions or requests review or PM me!

I would like to do those prompt type of stories, so if any of you have prompts please PM me :)


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